The Cambridge History of India, Vol. IV: The Mughul Period v4.c19.111

v4.c19.111

After this war ‘Alī ‘Ādil Shāh II gave himself up to the pleasures of the harem and the wine-cup, which prostrated him by a stroke of paralysis. His able and experienced minister ‘Abdul-Muhammad, however, continued to carry on the administration with honesty and success; but with the accession of Sikandar ‘Ādil Shāh, a boy of four (4 December, 1672), and the seizure of the post of minister by Khavāss Khān, civil war broke out between the Afghān and Deccani *cum* Abyssinian factions among the nobles, and the rapid decline and dismemberment of the kingdom began. Henceforth the history of Bījāpur became the history of its successive ministers: Khavāss Khān the Abyssinian (1672–75), Buhlūl the Afghān (1675–77), Mas‘ūd the Abyssinian (1678–83) and Āqā Khusrav (1684). The Sultān remained all his life a helpless prisoner; the provincial governors became independent of the central authority; and assassinations and faction fights destroyed the nobility in the capital itself.